"A unique, marathon event begins 21 June 2012. For the first time - 50 cars, 50 boats and 50 aircraft competing simultaneously against the others in their disciplines around Britain. 10 gruelling legs - Start and finish – Olympic Sailing Venue, Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy." http://www.rb12.com/ I will be taking place in this event in my Tesla with the goal of traveling the 2500 miles for ~60 GBP in electricity. All on route charging will be donated by ZCW as part of it's ZeroNet initiative.
Unfortunately, we have limited HPC charging capacity on the route and I don't think we can support more than one car driving simultaneously at this time (I'm trying to get Tesla to do more to help in this area but it's not easy). However, we would like to setup EV meetings along the route and would love to see you guys come over here for that.
Would this be a good start for Tesla to install superchargers in Britain? Including the adaptor for the roadster! :wink:
yes, but that's not under our control... we are taking part in an existing event which has a defined schedule... last thing we want is for the EV's to be turning up hours after everyone else. Trust me, I'm working hard to find locations where we can use the mobile HPC that Tesla have lent us... it's not easy. Support us by coming to the UK and taking part in one of the EV meets...
This route would be great for a Model S. The longest leg is 296 miles -- driven conservatively, this race could be done with no mid-leg charging.
Each day has an additional challenge that adds a lot of miles pushing it beyond a Model S range if you don't want to get disqualified for excessive time by driving at 30mph. However, the charging station legacy that we leave behind will make it much easier to compete in the future.
Or will make it possible for tourists with ev's to do the tour of britain! ;-) Got me dreaming about a bicycle-race around britain (bit like tour de france) but with only EV's as support-véhicles! With this network for the marathon around britain, it must be possible ;-) This would be a real zerocarbon race around britain then! :-D
I was thinking that a 85kWh Model S would be a perfect cycling team car. Huge amount of room, and the speeds (other than descending, where you make electricity) are about pretty low. Not sure the hit bikes on the roof would take, but I imagine you could make a 150mile route easy. Maybe Tesla needs to sponsor a team!
But Eberhard has a light right foot! It would be so cool to have a German registered Roadster competing. Can definitely make another (3x) 63A available at Taunton. That helps for 2 legs. Tebay might be amenable. Maybe if some of you come over for holidays soon, we can arm-twist the hotels into installing a second supply :biggrin:
I think you misunderstand the competition, it's the same as the Brighton to London with a prescribed turn by turn route. Unfortunately, the route does not go anywhere near any of the existing HPC's because it's coastal to match the boats... I'm not stopping anyone from entering the competition, but lets be clear that providing charging that allows one car to compete is extremely difficult. The last thing I want to see is my EV on the side of the road with Fifth Gear in the passengers seat :redface: The overnight charging is relatively simple because it's standard 13A + 32A ZCW installs at hotels... however, deploying temporary HPC's in some of the midday locations is difficult because they are private locations that are not going to have their 'arms twisted' how ever important we think we are. To put this in perspective, in 5 months we are building a network that is more than twice the size of the existing UK HPC network, includes a large number of private locations and listed buildings, and with the prospect of very little support from Tesla (no HPC donations this time).